Things We Lost in the Hellfire
by Indigo2831
Summary: In the aftermath of Jo and Ellen's deaths, Sam goes on a hunting spree. While Dean doesn't know if he can fight anymore. Angsty two-shot tag for 5.10, Abandon All Hope. Now COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

I couldn't help to write a tag to the wonderfully depressing, Abandon All Hope. I couldn't wait two months to see how the guys are going to handle this loss, so I let my imagination take over.

Please let me know what you think. Last part will be up shortly. Happy Holidays to everyone! :)

* * *

Sam wandered in the shadows of Bobby's house, unable to endure the torturous silence that always settled after someone had died. He was blissfully numb, mind still stupefied by the incomprehensible happenings of the day. The sheer facts of it—hellhounds, monologuing Lucifer, mass graves, a supernatural bomb, a useless sacrifice—made him both chuckle with macabre laughter and gasp around the tightness in his chest. There was nowhere to go from here. There was no hope to end what he had started, and no words to express how tragic it was that Jo and Ellen had died because of his good intentions. So he walked the house, picking up the discarded shot glasses still smudged with Ellen's lipstick and Jo's copious research, ignoring her girly handwriting, the doodles on the corner of the page. He cleaned to keep his hands busy and mind focused solely on the task at unimportant tasks at hand—arranging, organizing, tidying.

He stopped at the flutter of ruffled green leather, retrieving it from its place in the corner of the couch, straps folded over the arm. The leather was supple and luxurious, screaming of the designer handbags Jess had coveted; one Sam worked months to buy her for Christmas. It was undeniably feminine and a glaring misfit in Bobby's Ramshackle House of Testosterone. He sifted through it with care, fingers brushing over tubes of lipgloss, a beat-up wallet, stray dollar bills, a soft lime green scarf tied to the strap, and even an _ELLE_ magazine like the precious artifacts they now were.

It wasn't the weapons bag of a second-generation hunter. It was the purse of a young woman who lusted for stiletto boots and a sequined cocktail dress, who circled recipes for entertaining and exercises to strength her core. It wasn't the duffel of a solider who was fighting the literal war for the world. It was a piece of rare normalcy, the testament of a woman who wanted more, who longed for a different life but never knew how to attain it.

It was the thing Jo left behind after she died in a sticky pool of her own blood and a pink tangle of intestines.

No one should ever die in Sam's place, and his life was filled with people who did, starting with their mother and with Dean (and even Pamela) somewhere near the rear. It sounded silly that two more people were added to that list: beautiful Jo with her steadfast crush on Dean and her never-ending questions about Sam's time at Stanford; and Ellen, a woman he'd come to regard as a surrogate mother. Sam couldn't even look them in the face to say goodbye, because it wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It should have been him.

In the quiet, he heard the echoes of Ellen's cries and Jo's dying breaths, and his entire body shuttered, twisting with nausea and the dark burn of grief. He lovingly tucked the purse back in the corner of the couch, barely noticing that his hands had picked up some of the flowery perfume from the magazine samples.

He refused to let the despair fester into anger as Sam would have done in the past. Instead, he'd let it curl and bend into something more productive, something like redemption. Jaw clenched with determination, Sam pocketed his wallet, grabbed his keys to Ellen's car and his own to the Impala, and slipped out of the house. Under the starless sky, he dug into the Impala's hidden armory, swaddling away his father's favorite knife, the one that was willed to him after he died. The handle was smooth and weathered, matching the calluses of his father's massive hands. It was one of the things he'd drooled over as a child, and Dean had given it to him.

In a special compartment, he'd retrieved the silver necklace Jess had given him. He'd looped it around his neck, fisting the delicate key charm. She'd given it to him for his birthday, mere months before she'd burned, and told him it was the key to her heart. His friends made fun of him for wearing it, but he'd never cared. He was going to marry her, and he knew it the moment she'd given him that necklace. He tucked it under his shirt, next to his heart.

Next, Sam retrieved Dean's stupid "Cocky" belt buckle. He'd won it at a casino pie eating contest in Atlantic City , and wore it like it was an Olympic gold medal. Sam did too after Dean had died. He switched belts, looped it around his narrow waist.

He walked methodically to Ellen's truck, climbing in and adjusting the seat. It smelled like her, the bizarre cocktail of whiskey and Ivory soap.

His mother had given him his life, had protected him from evil personified, and he'd took that seriously as he lived, wanting to become a lawyer to help as many people as he could to make her fatal bravery worth something. Lately, it was all that kept him from blowing his brains out, all that kept him fighting. He did now, too, seeing her face, soft and lovely, as he had in Lawrence four years ago.

He walked methodically to Ellen's truck, climbing in and adjusting the seat. It smelled like Ellen, whiskey intertwined with Ivory soap.

Armed with the possessions of his loved ones, those taken by wickedness, Sam raced out of Bobby's junkyard to carve out some good.

**

The light stirring behind his eyes looked like hellfire. Dean snapped awake, alert, but vision blurred by disorientation and darkness. He listened and blinked, willing his eyes to adjust to the lowlight. He was lying prone on a bed in one of Bobby's spare bedrooms. He shifted in the slightest of movements, but that triggered a breath-stealing throb in the back of his head that sluiced down his neck, pooling into his shoulders and back in a puddle of molten lava. He squeezed his eyes shut, fisting the top sheet of the bed he was lying prone on. After a forty-year tour of hell, Dean wasn't a lightweight when it came to pain, but he couldn't handle this ontop of the grief. The physical agony was easily outdone by the emotional. Jo was gone. Ellen was gone. And Dean needed oblivion.

He licked his dry lips, canting his head upward, he drew in a wheezing, painful breath and called for his brother. Sam was hurting and probably just as traumatized as Dean was, but he'd at least bring him some painkillers and solace.

Instead of the lumbering studder-step of Sam's enormous feet, he heard the whirring glide of wheels.

Dean jerked and groaned when Bobby gently pulled back the covers and eased an icepack onto his battered back and shoulder. A rough pressed flat on his lower back as Dean mashed his face into the pillow, enduring the crescendo of pain that seized up his muscles like the throwing of deadbolts. He breathed through it as tears seeped out of his eyes and into the scratchy cotton. Finally, the pain subsided to tolerable levels and Dean turned his head to the left, panting.

"Devil packs a whollup, huh?" Bobby whispered with sympathy. "I got some drugs for ya, it'll do better than the Jack."

"Where's Sam?" Dean croaked. He wanted his brother close.

Bobby didn't answer. He merely busied himself with setting the break on his wheelchair and expertly shifting from it to the bed. Dean forced his eyes open to regard the older hunter, but couldn't move enough to see his face. "You sneaky old bastard," Dean cursed without venom, "where's my brother?"

"He's gone, Dean. He'll be back."

"Gone? What do you mean…he wouldn't just…leave…" Dean willed himself up, pushing against weakness and the throbbing in his head.

Bobby shrugged, eyes hollow, shoulders slumped. His face tightened sourly, like he did when he didn't want to tell the truth.

Standing up was infinitely trickier than sitting. He shuffled out of the bedroom, loping with the concussion-borne slant of the bloorboards. He knew the house inside and out and could maneuver it half-conscious and blind if he needed to (and had), but that was before Bobby lost his legs and he and Sam had spent a week outfitting it with ramps and chair lifts. The bookshelf he intended on leaning against at the end of the hall was gone. He pitched forward, reflexes sloppy and wild. The arm that jutted out, scrambling for a banister overshot, and hit the light fixture. Dean whited out for a second when he hit the wall. Glass the antique glass shattered around him as he slid to the floor, abandoned by strenghtless legs, too. "Sam!" He called, feebly, frantically.

Their father was the one who struck out on benders, leaving his young sons to imagine graphic scenairos of his death or, when they were older, driving from state to state, searching for their father. Sometimes they found him in the drunk tank, other times, hospitals. The relief halted the maddening worry, but it had left them permanently affected. Hence the brothers had an unwritten rule that they always checked in. Even those years when they weren't talking, Sam would text him if he was leaving California on breaks and or road trips. Dean would text him coordinates of new hunts.

Sam's departure, after the Harvelles' deaths, after the betrayal and the separation, ignited a raw ache and a grief Dean simply couldn't process. He leaned against the wall on the floor and felt disconnected, numb and shut down. He blinked again, vision kaleidoscoping, heart pumping sluggishly. He saw wheels in front of him again, and closed his eyes.

"He's done this before," Bobby said, his voice echoed like they were both underwater. For an instant, Dean thought maybe a God-sent flood had submerged the house and he could be done fighting and _losing_.

"What?"

"Sam…he's done this before," Bobby repeated.

Dean knew his brain was swollen or broken, but he couldn't remember a time when Sam had ever abandoned him when Dean was hurt (except, that one time he tried to kill him, but Dean rarely allowed himself to think about that). "No, he—You mean when I was dead?"

"Yeah. Before he left for good, he'd light out of here, fall off the radar for a few days. Never took your car though, and it's still here now, so...he'll be back."

"Hell wasn't chasin' him then, Bobby." Dean muttered on the verge of hysteria.

"_Lucifer _wasn't," the older man amended, "but you were gone, and I'll be damned if the boy wasn't in Hell."

**

In the eyes of the law, hunters were criminals of the worst kind—sociopaths obsessed with death, who defrauded good people to fund their lives of grave desecration and ritual murder. Their father had trained the boys to be thieves and cons years before he had handed them a gun or a knife. Until he knew better and sometimes even when he did, he stole to survive, swiping bandages from drug stores, picking locks and hotwiring cars. Fortunately, being trained as a criminal made him good at hunting them, too. With Lucifer free, hell was quite literally flooding earth. More demons were free than ever and they mixed in with the shady underbelly of humanity.

So Sam went on a hunting _spree_.

He'd eradicated any evil he could find, supernatural or not and moved onto the next. He'd stopped a carjacker, caught a pedophile who'd skipped bail, exorcised a band of demons who were somehow intertwined with a string of meth labs in Iowa. The trail of the dealers lead to a shady bar in the Badlands. In red shadows murky with smoke, Sam observed meth purchases going down with a ballsy nonchalance. After days of breakneck, pathological hunts, Sam still burned with a flickering neon rage, and he knew it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. He collected the evidence he needed in digital photos and ducked out the back door. It was better to deliver the evidence to the police. Even half-crazy, Sam knew when he was out-numbered.

The air was cold and yellowed from the sodium parking lights, but studded from the glare off the chrome of thirty motorcycles. He heard the footsteps behind him and sighed theatrically. "You really don't want to mess with me, dude." He warned, shoulders slumped, but hands stealthily sliding for his knife.

"Hey, you're playin' paparazzi in my bar, cat." a sinister voice crooned behind him. "Bad idea."

Sam could tell immediately that he had at least seven inches on him, and he was never below using his size as a means of intimidation or a weapon. A lethal glare over his shoulder provided a face to match the eerily smooth voice. He was leather-glad with a goatee that was more white than brown, and was one of the main dealers. Sam knew his pockets were stuffed with meth and lined with cash. The little guy struck out with a mighty kick to Sam's groin that he narrowly and thankfully dodged. The taller man merely attacked. He threw a barrage of punches, feeling them connect and probably break bone. An uppercut finished him off. He didn't even have time to regain his breath before he was nearly blindsided by a kick to the ribs. He dropped his arm tight to his side, managing to protect his ribs and diffuse the force behind it, but it still knocked him backwards, pain momentarily distracting him as he fought to refill his diaphragm. Throwing his swimming eyes, he saw the blurred figures of at least five more men. Their rage and intent, however, was pristine.

Sam was engaged in the fight before he had time to be scared. Adrenaline and experience gave him a brief upper-hand. He'd sidelined another man with an efficient, nasty punch to the throat and a gouge to the eyes. He downed another with a kick to the kneecap and then the crotch. But Sam was soon overwhelmed by the violence of too many attackers and too many blows. A bat to the back of his knee nearly dropped him, and only orneriness kept his knees locked, his shoulders upright.

Time inexplicably slowed down, and that filled Sam with a knowing foreboding. With garbled hearing, studded muffled profanity and the din of violence, Sam the heard the twinkle of breaking glass followed by the vivid image of liquor bottle glinting in the streetlamps. He didn't realize the edges were jagged until they were plunged into his belly. The pain wasn't immediate, but the pressure in his side was. A wicked twist of the bottle ground glass into his organs and carved a scream from his lips. He sloppily shoved the thug away with his right hand and staggered back, disturbed by the blood trickling like wine out of the mouth of the bottle embedded within him. Weakness followed, so thick and pervasive from the injuries and the back-to-back hunts that he couldn't fight back anymore, and a selfish part of him didn't want to. He collapsed, crumbling to all fours. His entire left side felt numb and limp and heavy. There was a delicate ringing in his ears and the erratic beat of his heart in his chest. A kick to the face felt like a being bitchslapped by a lightning bolt. His head snapped up, agony waltzing down his spine before he collided with the pavement, choking on the blood that oozed in his mouth and slicked the back of his throat.

Sam heard their laughter of smoke-scorched voices as hands roughly patted him down, and wondered why it sounded like the growl of hellhounds. The gnashing of teeth and the stink of evil were the last things Dean and Jo and Ellen had heard. The all-encompassing need for redemption, justice at any cost, morphed into a very human compulsion to survive. He curled his fingers around the handle of his father's knife he'd never grabbed before and lashed out at the feet surrounding him. For Winchesters, there was no such thing as fighting dirty, Sam didn't even wince when he sliced an Achilles tendon, and heard the screams intensify around him. He rolled back, inching underneath a truck and out the other side. Powered by nothing but shrill will, Sam stammered somehow managed to stand and he scrambled away in escape.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks so much for all who read the story. It's finally complete. I'd love to know what you think!

Happy New Year!

* * *

Dean sat on the cold floor across from the door of Bobby's house, watching the security monitors that covered nearly all the grounds. Sam had been gone for nearly one agonizingly long week, and Dean had since run out of what-ifs. He'd run out of patience. He'd run out of energy. He had been holding onto to, and fighting for his brother for so many years, he honestly didn't know if he could do it anymore. But if he didn't, there would be nothing or no one left to fight for.

For a horrifying, anxiety-ridden second, he'd thought Sam went to take Lucifer up on his offer, and said yes, but he heard his brother's voice and remembered the unmistakable pain eclipsing it:_ I set Lucifer free._ _You have know idea how much I'm punishing myself._ Then, the reports started coming in, from hunters, and the police scanners, and local newspapers.

_Unknown Do-Gooder Subdues Carjacker. _

_Stranger Traps Escaped Child Predator For Police. _

_Missing Man Found, Says He Was Possessed._

_Meth Lab Explodes, No One Injured. _

_Does Rigby Village Have A Superhero?_

And he knew it was Sam. Dean understood that he was talespinning and desperately grappling for a positive foothold. Dean had done the same after he had regained his memory of his time in Hell, charging into hunt after hunt, kill after kill with a bloodthrist and an intensity that scared even him. He'd gotten sloppy, and damn near got a family killed. Sam had put an end to it then, manhandling him into the Impala, and then to an abandoned cabin in the woods, where he made sure Dean slept and ate and vented his rage with an axe and band of helpless trees. Sam, apparently, didn't want his brother around for his breakdown. He'd thought about following, but Sam was moving faster than Dean could track. He'd left his old cell phone at Bobby's, making the GPS tracker useless, and took Ellen's truck in lieu of stealing a car or taking the Impala, which _was_ lowjacked.

So that left Dean to wait. Castiel had showed up, not with a job, but to linger with him. He stared listlessly at the angel as he walked methodically around Bobby's living room, inspecting everything in it with childlike inquisitiveness. His eyes finally caught the ugly, green purse tucked in the corner. Curiously, he lifted a hand in its direction.

"Don't touch that," Dean barked.

Angels didn't scare or startle, but Castiel's gaze slid to his, beseeching. "You sound troubled. What is wrong, Dean?"

"It's Jo's." He simply said, and leaned his head back against the wall.

"Jo is no longer living, Dean." Castiel expressed with his own brand of gentility.

"Just rub in that salt," Dean grimaced. The morbid chill that had claimed him for past seven days made him shiver. "For someone who's observed humans for millenniums, you don't know squat about 'em."

"I understand that this defeat was hard on you and your brother," Castiel confessed, still eyeing the handbag. "You are without hope."

Dean heard the rustle of Castiel's trenchcoat, then felt the man beside him, sitting on Bobby's floor that probably hadn't been swept since the '70s. "Hard?" Dean scoffed. "The way Jo died…I remember how that felt. I remember feeling the spray of your own blood on your skin and the claws sink in so deep-" he broke off, feeling his stomach churn with nausea. "No one should have to go like that. Let alone someone like…her," Dean gritted out around the pain in his heart. He wondered if it was heartbreak for what could have been, because apart of him knew that Jo was a good woman for him. She knew the life, and understood him in the way no one—not Lisa or even Cassie—could. "It's easier just to leave the damn bag in here and pretend she's in the bathroom. Or something. This is too big to swallow all at once, Cas."

"It makes sense now." Castiel said, his eyes grew sad for a moment. "Samuel behaved similarly when you were…not living."

Dean did a double-take, staring at the angel with flared, glistening eyes. He could barely breathe out the question. Life for Sam after he'd died was another thing he barred himself from thinking about.

Castiel explained, probably reading Dean's thoughts. "I observed him briefly while you were _'in the pit.' _He would take your duffle in and out of the car every day like you were going to need it. It was…peculiar until now."

Dean had no smartass reply for that bit of knowledge or even the breathe to say it, so he didn't say anything else. The quiet stretched out before them, and Dean hated it. As broody as Sam could get, he was never quiet. He breathed loudly. He cracked his knuckles. He clicked pens. He was clumsy. Dean missed the muffled curses when he knocked something over or the soft click of his brother's sure-handed typing.

Bobby was sleeping it off. Castiel still hadn't mastered small talk. Jo and Ellen were dead. That left Dean to watch the monitors.

And wait.

"The fields of Heaven," Castiel began, awe-struck and somewhat sad, "are very beautiful. More than I can put into human expression. Good people, people who do God's work, find peace there. I believe your friends will as well."

Dean felt marginally warmer, and even moreso when Castiel stood, and declared, "I am going to go look for Samuel," and vanished in a twist of light.

Hours later, Dean was still watching the monitors, his eyes nearly crossing with fatigue. Bobby ambled restlessly around the ground floor in his wheelchair—his new version of pacing. He let his eyes close, rubbing the bruises that colored his forehead and his stiff shoulder. When he opened them, there was a blip on the monitors. Dean squinted, and leaned closer. It was Ellen's truck sloppily parked at the front gates with a broad-shouldered, shaggy-haired driver.

"Bobby!" He breathed before he was tearing through the door and hurdling the labyrinth of ramps.

The car bobbed in Dean's line of sight. The hunter in him was checking beneath the car and all around for any threat that could have tracked Sam to Bobby's compound. The brother in him was stuck on Sam, drinking in the sight of him, like a dying man would water. He sprinted through the labyrinth of cars, butterflies in his gut, when he emerged, Sam wasn't in the driver's seat anymore. He was on the ground, half-crawling, half-dragging his weary body towards the main house. Even from yards away, Dean could see the tremble of his arms as he tried to propel himself over the dusty ground. His head bobbled unsteadily between those enormous shoulders.

Dean skidded to his knees, and refused to think of Cold Oak. "Sam!"

Sam's head canted in his direction, but he didn't or couldn't lift it. Dean knew complete and utter exhaustion when he saw it. Sam was running on the last dregs of adrenaline. He ducked down, wincing at the grimacing at the fresh blood dribbling from his mouth, the dried blood caked beneath his nostrils, the bloated, purple face, the eye that was swollen shut. "Good grief, Sam."

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam blurted through his busted lips. "'M sorry…" He was still crawling, fingers clawing at the dirt, making little progress.

A hand on his back revealed that he was trembling on the effort, and his shirt was wet with sweat. Dean didn't like how he struggled and gasped for each breath. "It's okay, Sam, we'll talk about it later. Take a rest, Sam," he said seriously, snagging the back of his black shirt to put a halt to the pathetic struggle. "Just rest."

Bobby arrived, bottle of holy water resting between his legs, panting from the effort it took to wheel out to wheel the distance out there. Dean took it, brushing Sam's hair back wiping the blood from his mouth with his bare hands. "You know the drill, dude; drink up." He pressed the bottle to his lips.

Sam stared at it with profound confusion as if he didn't know what it was for. Dean nudged him, a little. When Sam didn't react, he tipped the bottle. His little brother sputtered through a few sips, then gulped greedily.

Dean leaned down again, hand on Sam's knee. "I need to get you in the house; can you stand?"

Sam took several beats to answer, but when he did, it panicked Dean to the core. "_I'm hurt, Dean_."

Dean was inspecting him immediately, patting down his arms and legs, all while kicking him for letting the unfettered relief distract him. Sam shifted, swallowed jerkily, and let his right hand fall limply in his lap. The overturned palm was slicked with crimson.

"Son of a bitch." He scrambled for Sam's shirt, lifting the black one that was soiled with blood to reveal another one, Ellen's judging by the lavender cotton, was tied against a wound on his left side, the waistband and the top of his jeans were drenched in blood. "Jesus, Sammy. It's okay, you're going to be okay. We're gonna get you inside, and stitch you up. Then you'll tell me about your adventures as a super-hunter."

"Supa-hunta?" Sam whimpered in disapproval, clamping down on his jaw, as Dean pressed the heel of his hand against the friggin' _hole_ in his brother's side. He tried to smile with his bloated lips. "I'm _Batman_."

Dean chuckled in spite of himself. "_I'm_ Batman, bitch. You're Robin. Just waitin' for the big and tall green tights to come in the mail."

He craned his head over his shoulder, meeting Bobby's eyes with a loaded glance. Bobby nodded, face grim. He shook his head, darkly. "You idjits are gonna be the death of me."

Dean frowned as Bobby rocked in his wheelchair, gaining momentum until he tipped over with a grunt, rolling out of it with an experience that showed he'd done it before. His baseball cap fell to the ground, and he didn't bother to retrieve it. He pushed himself up on his arms, righted the chair and gestured to Dean. "Don't leave me out here like some ugly prom date, ya hear?"

Dean gruffed a "thanks" and swiftly, but carefully, hefted Sam into the chair. It took too long to for Dean to haul his gigantic brother up the ramp and into the house. He kicked the table in front of the couch out of the way, and eased Sam out of the chair and onto the shag rug beneath it. Then, he retrieved his switchblade, slicing through Sam's shirts in a few seconds. He quickly, but gingerly peeled the make-shift bandages off that were tacky and crusted in some areas. Sam groaned in pain, but Dean ignored it, peeling back the layer to get to the wound.

He was expecting a stab wound or even a gunshot, not the nasty ring of gouges and torn flesh. "What the…" he leaned closer, examining.

Sam had been gored.

"…broken b-bottle," Sam chattered out.

Dean cursed, bewildered by the violence of the injury. If there was glass still in the wound…He needed Bobby. He groped on the couch for anything for Sam to apply pressure with, fingers closing on a frilly green scarf. He bunched it up, and pressed it to Sam's abdomen, shoving a gurgled cry from his little brother's lips. "I know, Sammy. I know."

Delirious, Sam touched the fabric. "Dean, stop…it's Jo's."

"I don't think she'll mind, dude. This is more important."

"Is this…how it felt…for you…and fo' Jo?" He asked, voice fading to a mere whisper.

Dean looked at the injuries again, flinching somewhere deep within him. Dean wasn't the only one who had been traumatized by hellhounds. "Yeah, Sam...but you…hey," he patted Sam's ashen cheek, "no dying, right?"

"…mhmm…" Sam's head fell back and rolled agitatedly on the shag. "Shouldn't have…let them…do it. Should have stayed, made a stretcher…could have…gotten 'em out…"

"Shut up, Sam." Dean pleaded, still holding pressure. Beyond the blood, the left side of his torso was painted with beautiful hues of purples and reds. Dean thought seriously about taking him to a hospital. "Why did you do this to yourself, huh? You know the rules, big brother gets to come along for the breakdown."

Sam choked a laugh. With his brother's blood-stained teeth and swollen lips, it was terrifying and crazed. "…broke…Lucifer's vessel."

"Hey, that's my little brother you're talkin' about." Dean said distractedly as he realized the bleeding had finally slowed.

"Hold that there, Sam." He snagged a pillow and tucked it under Sam's head. He folded Sam's hands over his gut and grabbed his eyes again. "I need Bobby. Hang on for just a few more minutes, okay?"

His little brother's eyes were dark and dilated. He licked his lips with a desiccated tongue, fighting to stay conscious. "…hurry up…"

For not the first time, Dean wished he had the luxury of being squeamish as he and Bobby stitched up the last of Sam's wounds. He'd encountered many people over the years of hunting who had never seen a more than a few drops of their loved ones' blood outside of their body.

Dean never had that privilege. He'd dropped hundreds of stitches, removed a few bullets, even popped in a few joints, hating the numerous reminders that Sam was just a collection of organs and blood; instead of stubbornness and knowledge. Fortunately, Sam wounds, while nasty, weren't as bad as he'd originally thought. The glass bottle never completely penetrated Sam's incredible Abs O' Steel, which was a blessing.

He cut the thread, and gently wiped his side with gauze soaked in alcohol, cleaning them of blood and grime. Sam, whimpered, fingers pawing at the thick nap of the carpet. He was aching, shallowly under, and still reacting to what had to be severe pain, and it was making Dean sick. They'd wanted to move him to a bed, but Sam's sheer size, the location of his injuries prevented that, so he tucked pillows under his legs while he triaged. Dean sat on the floor and tending to Sam's red knuckles, shredded by teeth and the fervor of violence. He let his mind go numb as he scrubbed and bandaged Sam's hands, ignoring how much they looked like their father's. He moved up to his arms, flinching at the defensive wounds lining the bones—a testament to how hard Sam had fought for to give strangers the happy ending they couldn't have.

Life for Sam and Dean was the knowledge that they were pawns between two forces powerful enough to eradicate the planet. He couldn't tell his brother it would be okay. He couldn't tell him that they wouldn't lose anymore than they'd already had. There was nothing he could say to ease the loss of Jo and Ellen, and he loathed it as much as he hated the sensation of his brother's dried blood under his fingernails or the way Sam's Adam's apple bobbed spasmodically when he was in great pain.

Dean was wiping his face, now, laving away the sweat and tears that covered a bloated face he barely recognized. In a moment of sobering weakness, he pressed his forehead against his brother's, and just breathed in him, and just held him. To remind himself that he still had Sam. This wasn't Sam breaking of the last seal. This wasn't Sam stealing off in the middle of the night for another hit of bitch-blood. This wasn't Sam leaving him bleeding in a hotel room. This was his brother, hurt, from a quest to save as many lives as he could. This was _his_ Sam.

"We're it, Sammy. You and me. I know it sucks to carry this, but they picked us for a reason. They picked us because we can do it. People die for no reason at all…they get hit by busses or fall in the shower, but Jo and Ellen died for _something_. And that's more than most people can ever say, dude. Just hang on to me, and we'll do what we have to, okay?" He whispered the words with conviction, knowing his brother could hear him.

"Hate to interrupt your bonding session, but Gigantor here needs a bed and fluids."

Dean glanced up and nodded.

Bobby was more awesome than Dean would ever say. Not only did he have real suture kits, and IV setups, but an extra king-sized mattress. They rolled up the rug and replaced it with the mattress, easing their finally resting patient ontop and bundling him blankets, after starting him an IV, which Bobby strung from his wheelchair. Dean started a fire and camped out on the floor-bed, next to his brother.

It was Bobby who noticed Dean's belt buckle studded with glass in Sam's discarded jeans, and the "girly necklace" around his neck. Dean had seen the bloody knife if their dad's in the truck. Sam had struck out carrying the possessions of the dead, of the lost. "God, kid. You really a sentimental freak, huh?"

Sam slept on.

His eyes opened rimmed with tears like his body knew how horrible he felt even before his mind did. His throat was dry, his entire body throbbed with an ache dulled by really good narcotics, belly cramped with nausea from the blood loss. He burned from the heat of the fire, but was cold by the chill of the fever. His face was painfully tight, swollen skin stretched like a purple balloon. Once the duet of raspy, open-mouthed snores and the clammy grip of Dean's hand in his registered, Sam was still miserable, but the crushing loneliness he'd nearly choked on was gone.

He was home. And he'd wished he'd never left.

The world may have been ending, but for those quiet moments, it simply consisted of Bobby's warm living room and the weight and breath of his brother beside him.

Sam shifted on the makeshift bed, breath hitching as the fire in his side sparked again. He'd felt like something had been carved out of him. He'd hoped it was the evil part that made him Lucifer's meat suit.

"Time for more drugs yet?" Dean asked, instantly awake. Something he could only do when he was watching over Sam. Otherwise, he could sleep through a hurricane.

He managed a rusty, "not yet."

"You okay?"

Only one of Sam's eyes appeared to be working, and vision in that was garbled and swimming, "…feel like an apple." Dean would know what he meant.

He snorted a laugh. "Well, you got cored pretty good."

He disappeared for a minute. He knelt down side Sam, let him sip some water through a straw before he placed a bag of frozen vegetables against the swollen side of his face, wincing in sympathy, so Sam didn't have to. "If it weren't for your chicken legs, I wouldn't have recognized ya."

"You're the las' person to be…criticizin' my legs," Sam said, hoarsely. As his mind finally managed to catalogue just how awful he felt, it was fading again, body weary from the pain. He focused on breathing—short and shallow—and found that exhausting too. "Sorry for leavin'. Hard habit to break…"

Dean was nothing but a voice now, a reassuring rumble beside him, tucking in the blankets and sweeping his sweaty hair off his forehead. "You came back, dude. It's all right. Saved some lives, too."

"…I tried. Tell Bobby…'m sorry 'bout the rug."

"Don't be, it was friggin' fugly anyway. We'll steal him a new one when you're better."

The pain spiked and Sam groped for Dean's hand, toes curling from it. "Saw Jo…few times…before you came back…"

"Yeah?" Dean said, fingers scraping through his hair. It was as hypnotic for Sam as it was reflexive for Dean. "You gotta tell me about it when you wake up again. You need some more drugs, kid. You're about to break my hand."

Sam didn't argue, even though there was more he wanted to say. He swallowed whatever Dean gave him, and let the water the wash the taste of blood out of his mouth.

"I know there aren't word to express how bad this is…but we have memories, Sam. That's more than just things…"

As he was dragged back down, Sam thought maybe it was…

_He'd made it to the graveyard just in time, yanked Jo out of the grave, and finished the salt-and-burn amidst a spectacular storm of rain and wind and lightning. When it was over, he stood, drenched and silent, and ignoring the flash of angry in a very wet, very irate Jo Harvelle. _

_She looked like her mother. _

"_She called you, didn't she?" Jo sneered, pushing her wet hair out of her face. _

_She was soaked to the bone, and probably weighed all of ninety pounds. It was sheer insanity and orneriness that had her trying to dig a grave of a venegeful spirit alone. _

_Sam nodded, tight-lipped. His stomach was knotted with shame and guilt, as he hadn't seen her since Meg had possessed him, and used his body to terrorize her. _

_He hadn't seen her since Dean had died._

_She seemed to notice that he was alone and turned to look at the Impala parked in the distance, and just stared. After a long moment, she turned back with tear-filled eyes and stumbled out, "That rumor…about Dean, is it true?" _

"_You don't see him with me, do you, Jo?" Sam snarled._

_He flung into action, still spastic and broken around people—especially those who knew his brother—and began refilling the smoldering grave. Jo joined him. _

_When it was done, Sam left her at the cemetery, bought a few bottles of liquor and checked into a hotel room, prepared to drink until he passed out. _

_Sam was halfway through his first bottle when Jo picked the lock, entering as if she owned the place. She was clean, out of her muddy clothes, and in comfortable purple sweats. She smelled of soap and perfume. "You look like shit, Sam." _

_He was still in his wet, dirty clothes. "Whaddyou want?" He slurred._

"_I wanted to ask you how you were, but it's pretty clear." _

"_And you're not scccarred?" _

_Jo's eyebrow arched. "Of you right now? God, no." _

_Sam was on his feet in a second, closing the space between them until he could see vivid fear in her eyes and feel the heat of her skin. He was bigger now, and gladly used his size as a weapon. "What about now?" _

"_This isn't you, Sam. And that wasn't you. I know that." _

"_You should be scared. People around me have a tendency of dying. Bloody." _

_Jo wedged her hands between them, fisting Sam's grimy shirt. She pried the bottle of his iron grip, and shoved him towards the bathroom. "Shower." _

_He did, until the bathroom was opaque with steam and the hot water ran lukewarm. He shaved too, and emerged feeling clearheaded and loose from the heat. Jo was still there, lying casually on the far bed, clothes laid out on the near. In an attempt to find some clean clothes for Sam, she'd opened Dean's duffle that he habitually carried into the room, and rifled through it. He should have been upset—he couldn't even think of opening it or leaving it in the trunk without crying—but he wasn't. Because someone still cared enough to try to find him clean clothes. Someone still loved him enough to overlook his spectacular flaws, the curse that hung over his head, and wait for him while he showered. So he put the clothes on. Dean's sweatshirt fit barely fit, but the sweatpants were soft and worn and comfortable. _

_Jo smiled, eyes still locked on the television, "Buy me breakfast in the morning. And not from that dump down the street." Her eyes slid towards him, "you sleep?" _

_Sam shook his head grimly, "not anymore." _

_She jerked her head towards the bed. "Why don't you try. I'll keep watch." _

_Sam stretched out on the bed, and closed his eyes. "Put down salt lines. And get a gun out of bag." _

_He might have even smiled at the racking of a shotgun that immediately followed. "Not my first time at the rodeo, Sam. Go to sleep." _

_And he did for the next twenty hours. _

_When he woke up, Jo was still in the room, flipping a knife in her hands as she pawed through a magazine. "Whatcha doin'?" He asked around a massive yawn._

"_Dreamin'," Jo said wistfully. She squinted at him and uncharacteristically hesitated before speaking. "What was Stanford like?" _

_Sam, all stiff muscles and long limbs, wearily sat up. Letting his Dean-less reality rattled back home with the gentleness of an earthquake. He dropped his head and breathed around the pain of his fractured soul, the ache of his missing brother. Stanford felt like a hazy dream, a beacon in the midst of ever-deepening darkness. But he lifted his head to Jo's hopeful face. "Let me get dressed. I'll tell you over a shortstack." _

_Jo smiled then, face lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Awesome." She stood up, swiping her room key. "I'm going to go change."_

_He walked up to Jo, and kissed the top of her head. "Thank you." _

_**_

When Sam was strong enough to stand, he dragged, hobbled and swayed to the sink and attempted to wash Jo's scarf clean with scrubbed the blood out of Jo's scarf with the Winchester's special concoction. It probably wouldn't smell the same, but it wasn't ruined. He would add it to the collection of precious possessions, relics of those lost in the battle. Gone but not forgotten. Dean careened into the kitchen, half-panicked because Sam wasn't in the floor-bed. But when he saw his little brother hunching over the sink, legs shaking with weakness and fever, he didn't chastise him or even tease him for his chick-flicky tendencies, he merely came up behind him, and with gentle hands under his armpits, he held him up while he washed it clean.


End file.
